II. Methodology

This report is based on research conducted over two years,
including field research and meetings with government officials in Saudi Arabia in March 2008 and December 2006, and in Sri Lanka in November 2007 and October-November
2006. The research in Saudi Arabia took place as part of visits by Human Rights
Watch delegations by invitation of the Saudi government and hosted by the Saudi
Human Rights Commission.

In addition to our field research, we analyzed existing laws
and regulations, reviewed press reports, and examined studies by the Saudi
government, international organizations, and civil society. Although we were
able at times to obtain data and copies of regulations through requests to the
governments of Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Nepal, and India, there are also several requests for information that we made repeatedly
and to which we never received a response. Consequently, there may be some gaps
where we were unable to obtain original legal documents or the most updated
government statistics.

In a notable incident, a Human Rights Watch researcher
visited the Ministry of Social Affairs (MOSA) center for domestic workers in Riyadh on December 6, 2006. Despite promises of an open visit in which the researcher could
examine the facilities and interview sheltered domestic workers freely, we have
been reliably informed that the staff temporarily transferred several hundred
women from the facilities so that the shelter would appear to only have a few
dozen residents. In addition, they transferred all residents who had been at
the shelter for longer than a few days, presumably to hide the actual
conditions in which women are kept for several weeks or months in extremely
overcrowded facilities.[3]

A central aspect of our methodology included in-depth
interviews with domestic workers who were currently working in Saudi Arabia or had recently terminated their employment. We also conducted interviews with
recruitment agents, members of civil society, and government officials, some of
whom also spoke from the perspective of being employers of domestic workers. We
were unable to find employers willing to participate in a formal interview with
Human Rights Watch but we engaged in informal conversations with many employers
about their experiences in hiring a domestic worker and their attitudes towards
common practices regarding domestic workers, such as keeping their passports.

For the purposes of this report, we have not examined the
working conditions of household workers such as drivers and gardeners, but have
focused on women employed inside the home as nannies, housekeepers, and
caretakers for the elderly and sick.

The domestic workers interviewed are not necessarily
representative of all domestic workers in Saudi Arabia, but instead highlight
the experiences of those who have suffered abuse, the regulatory framework that
exposes them to such abuse, and the response of the Saudi authorities to their
individual cases. The majority of the domestic workers we interviewed in Saudi Arabia are from among those who sought government assistance for unpaid wages,
immigration problems, or other issues. Those interviewed in Sri Lanka involved a broader spectrum of experiences, including any domestic worker who had returned
from Saudi Arabia in the previous year. Our interviewees included:

Domestic workers: Human Rights Watch conducted
in-depth, individual interviews with 86 female migrant domestic workers between
17 and 52 years old. The majority of women were between 22 and 35 years old.

We interviewed 64 domestic workers in Saudi Arabia: 20 Sri Lankans, 20 Filipinas, 22 Indonesians and two Nepalese. Interviews took place
in Riyadh and Jeddah in embassy shelters, the Saudi government MOSA
shelter for domestic workers in Riyadh, and in private homes. We
interviewed 54 domestic workers in December 2006 and 13 domestic workers
in March 2008, including three of the same women we interviewed in 2006.

We interviewed 22 recently returned domestic workers in Sri Lanka in November 2006. We conducted our research in seven of the eight main districts
that send migrant women abroad. Interviews took place in private homes,
labor recruitment agencies, pre-departure training centers, and the Colombo airport shelter for returning workers.

We also conducted four group interviews with domestic
workers in Saudi Arabia in December 2006 and March 2008, and monitored dozens
of abuse cases through contacts with NGOs in labor-sending countries, embassy
officials in Saudi Arabia, and press reports.

In some cases, we could not independently verify specific
details of some of the abuse recounted to us, but given the recurring patterns
and the convergence of accounts around specific experiences recounted by
interviewees who would not have been in contact with one another, we have no
reason to doubt their credibility.

Recruitment agents: Human Rights Watch conducted
eight individual and group interviews with 13 labor recruitment agents. We have
continued correspondence with some of these agents via email and phone after
the initial interviews.

Six Saudi labor agents at a group interview at the Chamber
of Commerce, Riyadh, in December 2006.

Seven Sri Lankan labor agents (specializing in Saudi Arabia) in Colombo and Kurunegala, Sri Lanka, in November 2006 and November 2007.

Government officials: Human Rights Watch conducted 39
individual and group interviews with government officials.

Sixteen individual and group interviews with Saudi
government officials in December 2006 and March 2008, including the
ministers and other senior officials from the Ministries of Labor, Social
Welfare, and Foreign Affairs; officials from the Ministry of Interior, Al
Hair Prison, and police officials designated to deal with domestic worker
cases; and commissioners from the Saudi Human Rights Commission.

Seventeen individual and group interviews with embassy and
consular officials for the Indonesian, Filipino, Sri Lankan, Nepalese, and
Indian missions in Riyadh and Jeddah in December 2006 and March 2008,
including ambassadors, labor attaches, legal counsel, and social welfare
officers.

Six individual and group interviews with senior officials
from the Sri Lanka Ministry of Foreign Employment, the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, the Ministry of Labor, and the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign
Employment in Colombo in November 2006 and November 2007.

Our interviews with domestic workers typically lasted
approximately 45 minutes to one-and-a-half hours, and involved questions about
their reasons for migration, the recruitment process, their working conditions,
treatment from their employers, and the response of the Saudi government and
their own country in cases of abuse. Depending on the worker's spoken languages,
we conducted interviews with interpretation between English and Arabic, Bahasa
Indonesia, Sinhala, Tamil, and Tagalog, or in English itself.

We only conducted interviews after obtaining informed
consent from each interviewee, describing the work of Human Rights Watch, and
explaining the purposes and advocacy plans of the research and report. No
monetary or other assistance was provided in exchange for the interviews and
interviewees had the right to decline the interview or stop it at any time.

To ensure the safety and anonymity of the women with whom we
spoke, we have used pseudonyms for the majority of domestic workers
interviewed. In some cases, domestic workers explicitly requested or provided
permission to use their real names. Many of the officials we interviewed from
the foreign missions of labor-sending countries provided detailed information
conditional on our withholding their identities to avoid jeopardizing their
countries' diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia.